What RPG's have you played?

[WarmNPrickly]

I was just wondering what types of role playing games people have played. I played a number of RPG's as a kid. Perhaps I am pining for my youth, but I've wondedred if I would enjoy one again.

D&D of course so I won't discuss it.

Champions - This is a game where you make up that you are one of the X-men. You come up with a character (mutant) and there are some strict rules to follow on what type of talent you can have. If you wanted a big talent you had to pick a major disability. (Allergic to glass was a common one that people picked in my group.) I was just some no imagination ninja.

007 - I think thats what it was called. It was a fun spy type game based usually on james bond. You could be a PI, but I guess then you got different missions. We all picked spy cause James Bond was cool.

Some cartooniverse type game - This was a strange one. I can't remember much about it. Something about being able to pull sledge hammers out of thin air.

We tried to make our own game too. I think we called it ringworld. This was in the early 80's so I have no idea if the concept was stolen. It didn't last long.

[Lute Skywatcher]

I played D&D, too. My 6th Grade science teacher DMed sessions after school.Champions - This is a game where you make up that you are one of the X-men. You come up with a character (mutant) and there are some strict rules to follow on what type of talent you can have. If you wanted a big talent you had to pick a major disability. (Allergic to glass was a common one that people picked in my group.) I was just some no imagination ninja.City of Heroes/Villains was originally supposed to be along the lines of the Champions system but Cryptic decided to go with something more approachable.007 - I think thats what it was called. It was a fun spy type game based usually on james bond. You could be a PI, but I guess then you got different missions. We all picked spy cause James Bond was cool.That might have been Top Secret.

There was also a licensed James Bond Game published by Avalon Hill subsidiary Victory Games but that didn't have any PIs.

[bouv]

Obviously D&D. I started playing back when D&D and AD&D were two separate things (I'm guessing it was right about when 1st switched to 2nd. I was about 7 or 8 and my brother bought the red boxed basic D&D set from a lawn sale. We started playing with a couple friends of ours that were also brothers. We then switched to AD&D, and since then, I got older, and in HS introduced several of my friends to AD&D, and then we went to 3rd and 3.5.

Robotech. About three or four years after starting D&D, we started playing Robotech from Palladium games, because we all enjoyed the cartoon.

Vampire - I didn't play a lot, but a little bit back a few years ago before it switched to a new system, or whatever it did.

Exalted - Played for a few months with some people in college.

Rifts - My brother was big into rifts in college, and I would borrow some books and did a little bit here and there.

[N9IWP]

Games I've played quite a bit of:
D&D of course.
ShadowRun (1st and 2nd edition) - CyberPunk (with magic) type game.
Ars Magica - Game with a pretty cool spell system (with the ability to make up spells on the fly). For a magic centered game, not bad melee combat system.
Mechwarrior (The RPG aspect of BattleTech) - had some serious problems (IIRC the average person could run 100 meters in 10 seconds, even if encumbered)
But we didn't have much out of mech adventures.

Every PlatteCon (gaming convention held at my alma-mater: UW-Platteville) I try to play a game I haven't before (not just RPGs, also board games and card games). Too many to list, and I'm not sure I can remember much less describe all of them.

what the heck (in addition to the above)
Champions (I got to roll 48d6 once)
Paranoia
World of Darkness (Vampire, Mage, Mummy)
Chill
Cthuhlu Dark Ages
Star Wars (West End)
Star Wars (D20)
Serenity
Space 1889
Twilight 2000
Earthdawn
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Heroquest
Deadlands
Homebrew Anime
Homebrew Super Hero
Rifts
Toon (I'm pretty sure this is what Christopher was thinking of - its called "hammerspace" IIRC)

Brian

[WarmNPrickly]

That might have been Top Secret.

That was it.

[N9IWP]

Oh, and at least one GURPS game (Hitchhiker's guide - not sure what "system" was used) - I've probably played others.
I played a "Pigs in Space" RPG, but I forget the system it was based off of (not toon, a more serious space RPG)
I played the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" RPG

Brian

[WarmNPrickly]

I think Toon was the cartoon game I played.

[Menocchio]

I have played:

Changeling: The Dreaming
Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Mage: The Ascension
Shadowrun (3rd and 4th ed)
Toon
Mutants and Masterminds
Exalted

And I'm currently running Mage: The Awakening.

[WarmNPrickly]

I thnk there was some roadwarrior type car game I played too.

I had no idea there were so many differen't games. Please give descriptions where you know.

[Kamino Neko]

D&D, 2e, 3e, and 3.5e.

D20 Modern. Although the GM decided to mix D&D elements, in a way that didn't add anything, IMO, but rather just makes it difficult to make our character sheets. My history professor/wizard is a pain in the ass for this...my special forces guy is much better, only using D20 Modern materials.

DC Heroes - I think the new edition of this is called Blood of Heroes, but is essentially the same game, just without the stats for DC characters. I'm (theoretically, in any case - we stopped while I was sick and haven't gotten back, yet) running a game set in Gotham City. (Well...the most recent 'arc' has been set in Atlantic City, actually, but the characters are based out of Gotham.)

GURPS - it was a fun game, but the GM was a newbie, and the game kind of fell apart. It's a pity, I really liked that character. (Imagine Edward Wong Hau Pepilu Tivruski IV, as a pyromaniac catgirl, from a non-technological society, given a super-scientific time travel device.... You can see why she was fun.)

[WarmNPrickly]

D&D, 2e, 3e, and 3.5e.

Wait a minute, something happened to AD&D?

[bouv]

Wait a minute, something happened to AD&D?

Well, during the end of AD&D 2nd edition, they discontinued the regular D&D titled line, so no more "Elf" or "Dwarf" as a class. When 3rd edition came out (in 2000) they dropped the advanced amd it's just Dungeons and Dragons now (though it's like the advanced, with separate races and classes, more complex rules, etc...)

[Odesio]

I cut my teeth on AD&D but didn't really start buying my own RPG junk until AD&D 2nd edition was released.

AD&D 2 editions
D&D 3.0
GURPS (3rd and 4th)
Call of Cthulhu (various settings)
Marvel Superheroes (Old TSR version)
DC Heroes
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
RIFTS
Palladium Fantasy
Palladium Heroes
Robotech
Legend of the Five Rings (all three editions)
Chill
Dark Conspiracy
Shadowrun (1st edition)
Tales from the Floating Vagabond
Delta Force
Cyborg Commando (To my great shame)
Deadlands: The Weird West
Deadlands: THe Wasted West
Savage Worlds
True 20

I'm sure that can't be all of them.

Marc

[Oakminster]

I started with wargames, like Dune, Starfleet Battles, various Avalon Hill things, then got dragged into an AD&D game when I couldn't hijack the group to play Dune instead. Played lots of AD&D, but now go years between sessions. Still playing a Ranger I started in 1984. Also dabbled in a Marvel superhero game, Paranoia, and tried Cyberpunk. Then Karana invented the internet, and there was much rejoicing :D

[Flutterby]

I've played:

Vampire the Masquerade
Vampire Dark Ages
Werewolf the Apocalypse

and that's pretty much it. Got out of it because I moved and haven't found a group around here (it's not that there aren't just that I'm shy and the only reason I started was a friend introduced me and then I got to know others.. I don't know anyone here who plays).

There is a new system too, and it's all changed up. No longer Masquerade, the apocalypse has come and now it's the aftermath. I found some of the new books but I haven't had a chance to look through them yet.

[Jophiel]

Games I played at least semi-seriously (as in not just for one evening):
Dungeons & Dragons: The basic boxed set. I think I had the Basic (lvls 1-4) se and the Expert (lvls 5-10) set.

Advanced D&D: 1st edition. Never much got into the later editions but we played the heck out of the original game.

Gamma World: I played a monkey-man! My partner was a space amoeba! I had a needle-gun! That's about all I remember from this TSR sci-fi adventure.

Twilight: 2000: Post-apocolyptic world where you start as an American army unit trapped in Poland after the bombs fall. The setting was neat, the details were excellent, the feel of it was well done... but the game mechanics sucked ass.

Robotech: We played a little but were more interested in the Battletech system and just beating the crap out of one another than actually role-playing the pilots and stuff.

Bunnies & Burrows: Inspired by (and very loosely based on) Watership Down, you played a group of rabbits in this quasi-parody of RPGs. The game focused more on role-playing and problem solving than combat since, well, you were a rabbit and damn near anything could kick your ass.

Shadowrun: First edition again. This was one of the very few games where I never had to GM a campaign and only ever played the game.

Marvel Superheroes: Played some in college with a roommate but I found the character creation more interesting than the actual game.

Paranoia: I have to admit that I barely remember this game although I played it for several months in high school in the late 80's. I think the GM was mostly winging it. I do remember that I had a chainsaw for a weapon.

Vampire: the Masquerade: I think everyone who played RPGs in the 90's wound up playing this at least once.

Wraith: the Oblivion: Me and three other people played this. Not me and a group of three others, I mean the entire W:tO playing population apparently numbered four people. Which is a shame because it was easily my favorite World of Darkness setting.

[OtakuLoki]

Let's see, I've played:

D&D, Basic, 1st Ed. and 2nd Ed. (GMed, too)
Gammaworld
Rifts
Paranoia (I loved GMing that, too. But I've always said it must be played with either very close friends, or people whom you'll never, ever see again.)
Toon
Vampire (GMed, too)
Top Secret
finally, my personal favorite: The Morrow Project - a post apocalptic game, where the players are part of a nationwide conspiracy to rebuild civilization. And things have gone very wrong. I don't know many people who've played it, but I had a lot of fun with it. It was also a favorite of mine because as GM I could insist that the players try to be heroic. I got very sick, after a while, of people wanting to play villians.

[sturmhauke]

I played and DMed a whole lot of AD&D 2nd ed. I bought the 3.0 books when they came out, but by then life started interfering with games and I never got to play much. Now I've started beating life back, and I have a brand new character in the RPGA. They use modified 3.5 rules.

I was into the World of Darkness for a good while (mainly Mage and Werewolf) but now I've come to the conclusion that the system mechanics are fundamentally flawed. They've tried to fix it in newer editions, but at the same time they've completely altered the story settings. Now it's just kind of a giant mess.

Other systems, in roughly descending order of play time:

Rifts
Deadlands
Shadowrun
Trinity
Toon
Chill
various random stuff at conventions

[MrDibble]

So, no Rolemaster players, eh? "We few, we happy few..."
often derisively referred to as "Roll-Master", this d%-based game by I.C.E. (they also do MERP)used tables (lots of tables) for combat resolution. Results could be quite graphic. Still, nothing compares with the satisfaction of a 66 crit. Iusually DMed, but have played sorcerers and knights in other people's games.

Cyberspace 2020 was a pure cyberpunk game (no elf-hackers here) that used the same mechanics, and, I think, came closest to the Gibson setting in flavour. I was the techie.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And Other Strangeness) was put out by the Palladium (the rifts guys). Just the character generation was fun enough, never mind the gameplay. I was a raccoon getaway driver.

Casle Falkenstein was a playing-card based elf-steampunk system. I played an English nobleman sorcerer. Along with the elf-lord, the Hob, the Bayernese cavalryman and the Atlantean, we had a fun time. Including the time it rained mammoth.

I've also played AD&D 1st & 2nd Ed., GURPS, Vampire and Call of Cthulhu.

[crowmanyclouds]

I thnk there was some roadwarrior type car game I played too. ...Car (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Wars) Wars (http://www.sjgames.com/carwars/)?

CMC fnord!

[Headrush042]

I started out playing Car Wars in Jr High -- at first we just did arena matches, but later on we actually put together campaigns. Surviving long enough to develop one's character was difficult, and cloning was expensive. Perhaps this is what Christopher played? I remember the computer games (Autoduel for the Atari, and later Deathmatch for the PC) being lots of fun, and am eagerly awaiting a more modern game in the same vein. Anyone here played the MMOG Auto Assault? I'm curious as to how it stacks up against the pen & paper system.

AD&D of course -- 2nd Edition, mostly, during high school, and just this last year I've participated in one 3.5 campaign set in Eberron.

Mechwarrior - played one campaign that never got past 3 sessions. The battles took most of our time, so there wasn't much room left for character advancement, even though we were pretty good at surviving and winning.

Star Wars - I don't remember if this was its own proprietary system, though I assume it was. We did one campaign that didn't go very far. This was back in 1992, I think.

Toon - Rampant silliness. Playing with weird, creative people was a lot of fun.

GURPS - Many campaigns in various settings. We did high fantasy, sci-fi, modern, near-future, almost everything. The great thing about GURPS is it's so flexible, though designing the setting took so much time. I guess that was the trade-off for flexibility and genericness.

Heroes (or was it Champions? don't remember) - Very similar to GURPS, but super-powered. Generic and flexible, and powerful abilities cost few points. We played mostly near-future/modern settings, with sort of a pre-cyberpunk flavor. Think John Woo with a few technological face-lifts.

Paranoia - I don't remember this campaign at all. I remember it was fun, though psychologically brutal.

Call of Cthulhu - Probably one of my favorite settings. Very difficult to keep a character, though.

[Sublight]

D&D: Red Box/Blue Box

AD&D: v1 in school, v3.5 after a 20-year hiatus.

Car Wars

[glee]

Started AD+D 1st Edition in 1979.

Still playing the same version of the same game :eek: , with a couple of the original players :cool: plus some newbies (less than 20 years experience :rolleyes: ) today.

[Nava]

ALL?

MERP. My first, and almost my last due to a nasty case of GM With Brand New Book He Overuses And Too Many Prejudices. Also the one I played longest and miss most. Many Spaniards refer to it as LOTR if you use the LOTR history and maps, as MERP if not (maybe you're using the maps and even the monsters, whadayamean10nazgul?, but it's definitely Not That Place).

DnD. I still was convinced that RPGs were a Cool Thing. So when I saw the First Box, I snatched it as Middlebro's Xmas gift (knowing full well that Lilbro was a lot more likely to keep that ball rolling, but an expensive gift was easier to justify for the older sib). Boy did that ploy work. Mom, after years of being angry at me for this, ended up deciding it was a Good Thing when it triggered Lilbro into reading :D (which he'd been able to do for years, he just refused to, his first book was The Hobbit, then Neverending Story, third LoTR).

Paranoia. I even managed to survive a game. Not just survive: I had all my clones! Everybody else had achieved the usual endstatus of "deader than a rusted away doornail".

Elfquest. Couple attempts with friends, but it's hard to get a group going for this one.

Akelarre, which is based on Middle Ages Spain (reality and legends).

I don't remember the game's name now, but Marvel's Spanish edition used to carry a strip by Ñolo, Fan con Nata, where most characters were based on real people from the BarnaCity, uhm, excuse me, Barcelona comic/scifi/fantasy/rpg scene. He also did a RPG of it, which is murderously funny.

Champions. Lilbro's current favorite since many years ago. We've used it in all kinds of settings.

Star Wars

Chtulhu. There came a point where I just refused to play the damn librarian AGAIN. I'm not fond of clericing, but librarian? When everybody else gets to know how to blow stuff up? Ah, no!

That's the ones I can remember right now. There was a game I enjoyed a lot, a multi-group one based on some sort of Mad Max world, but that kind of thing is difficult to organize. Loved it, though, although our group got "forgotten" by the MegaGM after we'd gone into ambush... when group #2 was announced as the winner, we protested and, after review the GM team said "co-winners and we're sorry!"

[Nava]

(expired time)

MrDibble, anything not made in the US will be a rare find Over There. On another note, while Rolemaster and MERP are in theory different games, I still have to meet a GM who doesn't mix'n'match them as he sees fit. Stage #1 of any new group is usually saying "which parts are we using".

[Gorgon Heap]

A buddy found some of his older brother's stuff and began a D&D game about 12 years ago and got the ball rolling for us.

D&D (Played and running a game now)

Star Wars (WEG Not really played a lot, but running same campaign for the past decade)

Star Wars d20 (Not a fan of the system, but playing SW is playing SW, too bad it lasted only a few months)

Vampire

Deadlands (Several sessions before it dried up)

Rifts (One session, which lasted about a tenth as long as it took to write up the characters)

MechWarrior (2nd and 3rd editions, though admittedly only one short-lived campaign in 3rd, which is a shame since I love the setting and new game rules)

Shadowrun

Star Trek (Last Unicorn version. All of one session)

... Mutants and Masterminds (A friend made a big deal about puttin this campaign together ... last summer. We all have characters made, he just hasn't run. I guess that's what alcoholism does to a person)


Many of my friends are rather more prolific than I, but I was in the military and raising a family while they stayed single and were in college for the most part.

[Precambrianmollusc]

I geuss our staples were

Traveler
Middle Earth
Judge Dredd

with occasional forays into
Paranoia - always good for a laugh
Call of Cuthulu - always good for thinking, then breaking out the .50 caliber
Dragon Warriors - nice and easy system - quite fun because one didn't get bogged down.
Warhammer rpg - all around not bad - lots of background. The enemy within campaign was very good.

Dabbled in;
Living Steel - It was just so mind boggling complicated, I bought the box set way back at a convention, but after spending 20 minutes trying to resolve a single combat round, well after I DM'd one scenario it pretty much died..

2300AD - another horribly complicated combat system but the background setting was cool

Megatraveler - meh it just wasn't as good as the original

Toon - fun, whimsical
Teenage mutant ninja turtles
Top Secret - crap IMO
Star Wars - hmm so so
Space 1889 - I don't know why
Cyberpunk
Stormbringer

[CandidGamera]

D&D, Deadlands, TORG, HERO (Champions' system), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Call of Cthulhu, Mutants and Masterminds, Silver Age Sentinels, D20 Modern, RIFTS, TMNT, GURPS, ElfQuest, DC Universe, DC Heroes, Star Wars d20, Star Wars d6, Marvel Super Heroes, With Great Power, Spycraft, Middle-Earth Roleplaying, Werewolf, Vampire, Mage, Toon, Star Trek, Gamma World, Big Eyes Small Mouth, the City of Heroes RPG, Hackmaster..

Probably some more..

[Dunderman]

A handful of Swedish games you won't have heard of (Sweden is basically the only country in the world where Dungeons&Dragons isn't the default role-playing game; few people here have even played it), Chill (loved the setting), GURPS (3rd and now 4th edition), The Steve Jackson Star Wars game, and probably a couple I'm forgetting.

[lokij]

Wow... Let me think...

D&D- 2.0, 3.0, 3.5

WoD- Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith

Gurps

Rifts

Cyberpunk

Shadowrun

Call of Cthulhu

Paranoia

Mechwarrior

Mutants and Masterminds

Aeon (then renamed Trinity)

Think that's it.. for straight RPGs anyway.

[Zakalwe]

TravelerAhhh...thank you. That's the one I was trying to remember. Fun little game as I recall.

[Sweetums]

Let’s see, I am a huge geek and have been so since the late 70’s so, as best as I recall:

D&D; Started with the blue box, have played every incarnation since, except for 3rd edition, since there is no one to play with in my current city.

Traveler: The first Sci-Fi game I recall seeing.

Space Opera: A more detailed version of Traveler. Took forever to role up characters.

Runequest: Fantasy Roleplay, with a better combat system than D&D

Toon: The best game to play drunk.

Shadowrun. A friend of mine was writing for FASA when this came out. So we kinda had to play.

Cyberpunk: Not really my genre, but fun.

Call of Chuthulu: I even had a character survive once.

Werewolf The Apocalypse: Got to work out my frustrations with all the Anne Rice “I wanna be a smelly dead thing” Goths. Killing Vampires, YAY!

Champions, Stormbringer, MERP, and a few others that we only played for a session when we were tired or our regular D&D campaign.

[Flutterby]

I just realized, I should add that we did Mind's Eye Theatre, not the dice.

I wish I could still play with the group I used to. They finished Dark Ages, moved on to Elizabethan and are now working on Victorian (setting is London).

[D_Odds]

These are all games which are in the "more than once" category. Might not be a complete list, but people my age start to forget things...

Every version of D&D / AD&D
Champions*
Traveller
Shadowrun*
Runequest
Rolemaster & MERP (Rolemaster Lite)*
SpaceMaster (modified to a GI Joe-type campaign)*
Villians & Vigilantes
Robotech*
Marvel Super Heroes
DC Heroes*
Dr. Who
Paranoia

* indicates GM experience. Sadly, it's been over 10 years since I've played.

[ArizonaTeach]

Lot of great games here...lot of great memories. However, one of my favorites hasn't been mentioned yet: 7th Sea. It goes by Swashbuckling Adventures now, but the scope of the original rulebooks -- a slightly warped Renaissance-era Europe, with analogues for Russia, Germany, France, England, and Spain, in a high-drama pirates and politics, Errol Flynn-like setting. I still remember the first campaign, which ended with the heroes sliding down the velvet curtain at an operahouse to confront the villains.

Definitely one to seek out.

Deadlands is right up there, too. If done right, spooky as all hell. I'm talking the Weird West, not the Wasted West or Lost Colony versions. I need to take a look at the new edition one of these days.

Harn is an incredibly detailed, immersive world, but I can't say I like the rules system too much. But for those who are very much into the intricacies of a middle ages period where even the most minute details of a village is provided, seek it out. It's a very clever design, with some very nicely produced materials in three-hole-punch format so you can organize your rules however you want, and most home-made materials you find online respect that format and have created some beautiful stuff for that game.

Star Wars was fantastic under West End Games (so was their Indiana Jones game, for that matter, but I only played it once). Tragically, Wizards killed the game as far as I'm concerned. I'll glance at the new rulebook, but it seems like it's just an engine to sell more minis now.

The FASA Middle Earth was a lot of fun, but we were playing it all wrong, which I didn't realize until much later. Wonder how much fun it would have been if we followed the rules correctly...

I bought every Legend of the Five Rings book and never played the damn thing. Was it any good?

Oh, and my latest heartbreak -- Stargate. They only produced four or five books for it, and I loved it! Used the Spycraft rules, and they lost the lisence after only one year. We need to pull that out again...but after finding a planet inhabited by vampires, where can you go, really?

It Came From the Late, Late Show. You're actors playing characters in bad movies, so you could play any genre. That was more fun coming up with ideas than playing, but it was an absolute blast. "Dial A for Alien" and "Attack of the Ninja Vampires - The Musical!" were my favorites. The GM actually made us write songs and sing. My contribution - "Don't Leave Home Without Your Crucifix." I still remember the words. Heh.

And that's only the tip...God, I was a nerdy kid!

[wolfman]

Hey anyody here remember the christian role playing game? One of the kids in the neighborhood had parents who wouldn't let him play D&D, so they bought him a christian one. We gave it a try for a while. It was pretty similar, except that your armor was things the like breastplate of righteosness, and in stead on magic, you memorised bible passages and said them out loud. I still have a starlot(10 sided die that made a star when you pointed it toward the light. It was interesting, but not very complex, so we went back to normal D&D and he lied to his parents. ;)

[wolfman]

Found it, DragonRaid.

[Sweetums]

Hey anyody here remember the christian role playing game? One of the kids in the neighborhood had parents who wouldn't let him play D&D, so they bought him a christian one. We gave it a try for a while. It was pretty similar, except that your armor was things the like breastplate of righteosness, and in stead on magic, you memorised bible passages and said them out loud. I still have a starlot(10 sided die that made a star when you pointed it toward the light. It was interesting, but not very complex, so we went back to normal D&D and he lied to his parents. ;)


Okay, that sounds like it might be almost as much fun to play than Toon or Paranoia when drunk. :)

[Balance]

D&D, AD&D (1st and 2nd), D&D 3.0/3.5--Started when I was 11, sitting in on a session with my older brother and his friends (and bailing their party out of trouble, much to their embarrassment). I've played Oerth campaigns, Realms campaigns, and lots of homebrew settings.

Star Frontiers--Does anyone else even remember this game? Lots of aliens, and having to choose either armor against laser weapons or armor against ballistic weapons. I played a character from the insectoid race because they reminded me of Thranx.

Paranoia--Yes, I have had missions where we never got out of the briefing.

Toon--This was always a lot of silly fun if you could get a group that was good at improvising and understood that dignity was overrated.

Lost Souls--I loved the premise of this game. Your character starts out dead; you play one of a number of different kinds of ghost. The goal is to finish whatever unfinished business is holding you to the world. Even relatively trivial tasks are hard, because ghosts are extremely vulnerable to earthly phenomena (wind can hurt them badly), but have very limited ways to act on the physical world. As a result, they have to cooperate to get the job done. As you play, you get karma points for how well you do things, for roleplaying, and so forth. When (and if) you eventually succeed, you get reincarnated; the book has a chart showing what new form your karma earns you (ranging from "Pond Scum" to "Higher Being").

Vampire: The Masquerade--Depressing game, but it had its moments.

Shadowrun--I always seemed to wind up playing a magician of one sort or another, and could never get into the cyber side.

Ars Magica--Oddly enough, I never actually played a Hermetic magician. I played a hedge wizard from one of the supplements; he couldn't do spontaneous spell-casting, but in some ways he was actually more powerful than the Hermetics in the campaign. Also, the fact that he could just find vis while walking along the road drove the other players up the wall. :)

Nobilis--Essentially, you play Powers, minor godlike beings with very specific portfolios. Your primary goal is to defend the structure of reality against forces that are trying to unmake it. The gameplay relies heavily on improvisation, description, and storytelling. We tried to get a group together on the SDMB to play, but it fell through. I played a few sessions locally, but the group broke up before we really got anywhere. The rulebook makes a better coffee-table book than any other RPG book I've seen, I think.

[FlightlessBird]

Oh I just have to add a little known game that was a large part of my childhood.
Teenagers From Outer Space! (or TFOS (http://www.talsorian.com/talsorian/NEWWEBSITE/TFOS.html) to the old gang)
What really sold it was the rulebook was hilariously written.

[Max the Immortal]

I got started on Palladium Fantasy, Rifts, and Heroes Unlimited. I've dabbled in Vampire: The Masquerade and Changeling. Now I focus on D&D 3.5 . I'm interested in trying Legend of the Five Rings; I hear that it's amazing if you have a good GM.

[D_Odds]

Paranoia--Yes, I have had missions where we never got out of the briefing.There were supposed to be missions after the briefings? I guess one really does learn something new every day.

[Bosstone]

Paranoia: I have to admit that I barely remember this game although I played it for several months in high school in the late 80's. I think the GM was mostly winging it. I do remember that I had a chainsaw for a weapon.From what I understand of Paranoia, if your GM was winging it, then he was doing his job correctly. :D

Man, I want to play Paranoia so much. Right now my only RPG experience is D&D 3.5, although I do have the Feng Shui and Wheel of Time D20 sourcebooks as well.

[Jophiel]

[Star Frontiers--Does anyone else even remember this game? Lots of aliens, and having to choose either armor against laser weapons or armor against ballistic weapons. I played a character from the insectoid race because they reminded me of Thranx.That's the one I was thinking of when I said "Gamma Worlds". It was Star Frontiers with the ape-man and needle gun.

[Balance]

There were supposed to be missions after the briefings? I guess one really does learn something new every day.
Well, every now and then, the GM would come up with a new and fun way to kill us all that involved being someplace else.

[bouv]

Oh, I remembered that I played one session of some kind of Lord of the Rings-based RPG. This was back in high school (late 90's), though IIRC the game we were playing was from the 80's. I didn't like it, because the GM had waaaay too much work to do with tables. We would roll for an attack, then he would look up that number on a table for the weapon, then compare that number to a table for the creature, then roll again and look at a table to see where it was hit, then consult a table for the location to see the damage and roll to see on that table to see if there was addition effects, like reduced movement from hitting a leg. Just too damn complicated.

[mlees]

Oh, I remembered that I played one session of some kind of Lord of the Rings-based RPG. This was back in high school (late 90's), though IIRC the game we were playing was from the 80's. I didn't like it, because the GM had waaaay too much work to do with tables. We would roll for an attack, then he would look up that number on a table for the weapon, then compare that number to a table for the creature, then roll again and look at a table to see where it was hit, then consult a table for the location to see the damage and roll to see on that table to see if there was addition effects, like reduced movement from hitting a leg. Just too damn complicated.

That sounds like MERP (Middle Earth Roleplay) from Iron Crown Enterprises.

Lots of detail in the combat system, but that level of detail slows stuff down, as you noted.

[mlees]

There is also Rifts from Palladium, for the sci-fi RPG crowd.

[Just Some Guy]

Geez, time to think back...

AD&D - First edition and second edition, but I've never played third outside of a computer game even though I own the core rulebooks. Around the time that second edition hit my tastes were changing to more setting focused games or ones with better mechanics so for a long while I wouldn't touch D&D with a ten foot pole. At this point I'd play a game (rather than role-playing) focussed session of third, but it would be far from my first choice.

Vampire and Werewolf - I had friends heavily into the Worlds of Darkness stuff so I played a session or two of these. It wasn't to my tastes.

Call of Cthulhu - By far my favorite. Part of that may be this was my first RPG after D&D and the BRP system it used was elegant compared to the mass of D&D rules (it's a little clunky compared to modern systems but I like any RPG where I can explain the mechanics in five sentences or less).

Toon - I had the good fortune of playing this with Greg Costikyan, one of the creators of the game, a few years ago at Origins and had quite a bit of fun. Of course, I wanted to play his other masterpiece...

Paranoia - Loving this game is mandatory, citizen.

Big Eyes, Small Mouth - I tried to set up a space opera campaign using this system before. It didn't last long, but the system was good.

DC Heroes - I was given the core books and a ton of supplemental material for DC Heroes so I ran a few sessions of it. I recall this ended badly when after letting the Joker get away because of a prank bomb scare they didn't stop the real bomb the Joker later set up ("I'm not falling for that again!").

I must be missing a dozen games that I played just one session of...

[Scupper]

Dungeons & Dragons The original, from a photocopied version of the rules, when photocopies were relatively novel, through the current 3.5 version of the rules. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Gamma World The original (not Metamorphosis Alpha, though) through the third edition of the game.

Star Frontiers Still got a warm spot in my heart for this game. It was illogical and suffered from a very poor understanding of physics and perilously poor support from TSR, but it was still a lot of fun.

RuneQuest Third edition, both in Glorantha and in a more generic fantasy world. Some of the best games and campaigns of my youth.

Champions Many versions, up to and including the new Hero 5.0 system, which is much broader in scope than just superheroes.

GURPS The poor man's Hero System. Still, excellent sourcebooks and many, many hours of fun. It was my system of choice for many years.

Mage: The Ascension, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Vampire: The Masquerade aka the World of Darkness. Fun, but mechanically stillborn. You just can't mix genres in that system and hope for anything remotely resembling balance.

Deadlands Played a little. Good fun, though.

Twilight: 2000 Far too much scrounging and counting bullets to be fun.

Dark Conspiracy Could have been a great game, but was hampered by fairly cruddy rules. Setting had a lot going for it, though.

Call of Cthulhu A classic. Simple and fun. Doesn't really lend itself to campaign play, however, since players tend to die horribly the first time they run into something nasty. Or go insane. Or both.

Big Eyes, Small Mouth Meh.

Toon I just didn't "get" this game. I guess the point is just to screw around and come up with as many cartoon cliches as you can?

Top Secret Fun idea, awful system.

Traveller The classic space opera game. Not my favorite system, nor my favorite setting, but had some good times playing.

Traveller: 2300 (a.k.a. 2300 AD) Very gritty and realistic sci fi setting with lots of fun toys and a believable enemy. Pretty much just Aliens, though, when you get right down to it.

HERO System The most comprehensive and mechanically viable system in roleplaying, in my opinion, but it's an order of magnitude more work for the GM than any other system, with the possible exception of GURPS (which is basically the same thing, but not as well thought-out).

Star Wars (the West End Games version) Surprisingly good system. It worked really well until a Jedi got into the mix, at which point the games tended to be, "Stand around and watch the Jedi do their thing," for all the non-Jedi. The d20 version never seemed very interesting, but, then by that point, Lucas had totally ruined the SW universe for me anyway.

Paranoia Great game, tons of fun. Takes a fair number of players and a certain mindset.

Middle Earth Role Playing I'm pretty sure the system for this game was written by sadists.

Space Master See the previous entry.

Savage Worlds Current system of choice. Rules-light, fast-paced, and reasonably robust. The only game system I've ever seen where you can easily prevent the players from fighting every fight to the death. Scales somewhat poorly, though.

Edit, because I forgot Paranoia, MERP, and Space Master.

[Carl Corey]

Many of mine have already been noted, but here we go:

AD&D
Gamma World
Star Frontiers
Traveller
MegaTraveller
DC Heroes
Marvel Super Heroes
James Bond
Champions
Villains & Vigilantes (simple but fun superhero game)
Robotech
Twilight 2000 (only a little bit)
Pendragon -- Arthurian RPG (duh) that I enjoyed quite a bit.
GURPS Superheroes
Toon

I also played some BattleTech and Car Wars.

[sturmhauke]

There is also Rifts from Palladium, for the sci-fi RPG crowd.
Yeah, I wonder if anyone here has ever played Rifts.

[Quartz]

I started in the late 70s. (A)D&D in numerous versions, Runequest, Traveller (original and 2300AD), Fantasy Hero, Hero system, Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu, Rolemaster / MERP, Toon (once), and more that I don't recall. I've not gamed in well over a year, but am active on Enworld's messageboard (www.enworld.org).

[Ol'Gaffer]

Ooooh, a chance to show off my geek roots...

D&D/AD&D plus future incarnations
Gamma World
Top Secret
Twilight 2000
Warhammer
Ars Magica
MERPS
Call of Cthulhu
Palladium
Shadowrun
the Gygax game after he left TSR (I can picture the cover but for the life of me can't come up with the title - perhaps because it was wholly forgettable)

plus a couple of homemade pick-a-part systems

[MissTake]

Started with D&D in high school. Quit after being called a geek one too many times.

Then I embraced my inner RPGer in college.

Played primarily Marvel Universe and AD&D. Marvel on Fridays, AD&D on Saturdays.
Also played:
Car Wars
Rus
Warhammer
Shadowrun

And another one that for the life of me I cannot remember the name - I remember zombies, killer psycho clowns, carnivals, ghosts....

It was kinda neat - in our group of (usually) 8-10 players, I was the only girl. A few tried, but didn't like it. At first the guys tried to play nice. Awww, let the little girl fight a slug or whatever. But in like Marvel I always picked the not so nice characters (Domino, Scarlet Witch &c). I really enjoyed letting out my inner bitch!

[Odesio]

Yeah, I wonder if anyone here has ever played Rifts.

I listed Rifts as one of the games I've played.

Some more I forgot to include.

Ghostbusters
Vampire
Werewolf
Gammaworld
Mech Warrior
Star Frontiers
Star Wars (d6 and d20)
Star Trek (FASA and LUG)
Stargate SG-1
Spycraft

Marc

[Scuba_Ben]

I've played:

D&D / AD&D v.1, v.2
Toon (never as a campaign)
Car Wars (always arena combat, never as a campaign)
Paranoia (Happiness is mandatory. Playing Paranoia makes you happy.)
Teeners (attempted to GM a session once)
Twilight: 2000 (character creation took longer than the adventure!)
Werewolf: The Apocalypse
GULG (playtesting a GURPS homegrown variant)
Taps (playtesting a homegrown system)
Star Wars (1 session)
Shadowrun (1 session)

A while back I came across references to JParanoia, enabling people to run a Paranoia game over the Internet with a Java client. Might anybody be interested?

[Lightray]

Oh, heck. Just put me down for most every one multiply mentioned already, 'K?

I bought every Legend of the Five Rings book and never played the damn thing. Was it any good?
It really depends upon what you're looking for from the experience. The 1st edition was very good at emulating some aspects of the RPG in a chanbara-ish system. The mechanics imposed their feel on the game in a very real way; if you weren't looking for L5R, it was kind of sub-optimal.

2nd edition... had problems. 3rd edition is very pretty to look at, but has been revised in so many places that it's very different from 1st edition -- power creep and greater character surivability, for example.

Oriental Adventures + Rokugan... well, if you wanted to play D&D with an L5R veneer, it was okay. Although the mechanics of the classes were rather sub-optimal (which, for D&D, can be a big problem).

HERO System The most comprehensive and mechanically viable system in roleplaying, in my opinion, but it's an order of magnitude more work for the GM than any other system, with the possible exception of GURPS (which is basically the same thing, but not as well thought-out).
The character generator program for 5th edition HERO is the bees' knees, though. Made my job as GM (when playing that) much easier. I've a friend who wants to GM GURPS, and he's found no such resource.

So I'd put GURPS as worse than HERO. And we may be soon playing HERO, instead of GURPS, methinks...

[shy_kat]

Let's see:

AD&D (boo hiss)
**Ars Magica
**Earthdawn
**Legend of the 5 Rings
**Fading Suns
Exalted
Dogs in the Vineyard
Paranoia
GURPS
FUDGE


**personal favorites/long-running campaigns

[ExTank]

D&D (every edition)
Space Opera
Traveller (in the original three-book boxed set)
Twilight 2000
Top Secret
Merc 2000
Traveller 2300
Shadowrun
Cyberpunk
Gamma World
Paranoia
Star Trek (FASA)
BattleTech/BattleMech
Ars Magica
GURPS (I forget which edition)
Star Wars (D6 & D20)
7th Sea
Blue Planet

[GargoyleWB]

I see a lot of old-schoolers on here :cool:

D&D (Basic, Expert, Companion)
AD&D (1st edition mostly, dipped a toe in the water of 3rd ed)
Star Frontiers (the most-played hours of my non D&D games)
Top Secret
Gangbusters (fun, but limited world scope, got better when mixed with horror elements)
Boot Hill (loved this one, a shame so little source material)
GURPS (did Space, Horror, and Martial Arts campaigns)
Traveller (not much, but got the flavor of it)
Star Trek (FASA version, never tried SFB)
Gamma World (seemed fun idea, but combat and characters were dull)
Mechwarrior
Car Wars (fun, but combat took all day to run a single decent battle)

[OtakuLoki]

Well, every now and then, the GM would come up with a new and fun way to kill us all that involved being someplace else.


*blinks* You needed the GM to come up with ways to all the characters? What kind of wimp Paranoia players were you gaming with? I'm not even going to talk about Nava's ridiculous claim. Everyone knows that Paranoia adventures never finish, they just go onto hiatus with the whole Troubleshooter team dead. The endgame section of the modules was there simply to amuse the gamemaster. Or so I hear. I wouldn't want to go around claiming Ultraviolet clearance, that's dangerous.

Scuba_Ben I looked into JParanoia a few years ago, but never got to test it out, because I couldn't get anyone interested. Count me in as being curious, at least.

[sturmhauke]

I listed Rifts as one of the games I've played.
You, me, and like 7 other people. Hey, did you hear something?

[Scuba_Ben]

Scuba_Ben[/b] I looked into JParanoia a few years ago, but never got to test it out, because I couldn't get anyone interested. Count me in as being curious, at least.I just looked up JParanoia; the files are presently hosted at Paranoia-Live.net. Apparantly the former download site was either deleted for security reasons or taken over by traitors. Maybe both.

The last time I played Paranoia we had Frank #2 as GM. I think the game lasted about 3 hours, and he had to cut about half the mission to fit the time constraints. IIRC, we had a 200% fatality rate, and at the debriefing, one of the five characters survived the debrief. For a Paranoia mission, these numbers may be atypically low.

[DocCathode]

D&D 2.0- Years of fun here, currently playing a cleric in a Viking campaign.

Paranoia-To not love this game is treasonous citizen!

Shadowrun- I dislike the setting and the rules of the edition we used.

Vampire the Masquerade- I like Malkavians.

Werewolf The Apocalypse- I like BoneGnawers

Gammaworld-Mutant a go go

Heroquest-Just joined a campaign. I play a devotee of Humakt. I may start a thread asking for more information since I only own 1 book.

Tales Of The Floating Vagabond- fun stuff.

I'm currently reading up on GURPS in order to GM a GURPS Hellboy campaign.

[CandidGamera]

I knew I'd forget at least one - Fading Suns.